Biography

St. Barbe’s ancestors had held Ashington, six miles from Ilchester, since the middle of the 14th century, but since acquiring Broadlands by marriage in Elizabethan times they had resided chiefly in Hampshire. St. Barbe’s father held local office in both counties from 1643 to his death; a Parliamentarian in the Civil War, he represented Hampshire in 1654, the first of the family to sit. St. Barbe’s guardians bought him a baronetcy at the tender age of eight. The intermediary, Lady Graves, was allowed to describe the recipient as a loyal gentleman of £2,000 a year, and to assert that his father had hazarded his estates in the Civil War by deserting Parliament to join the King. He was returned for Ilchester in 1681, probably as a stopgap on the Phelips interest. He may have supported exclusion, nevertheless; but no activity is recorded of him in the Oxford Parliament, and he never sat again. Both his wives came from leading Whig families, and it was only after the Revolution that he became a j.p. and deputy lieutenant. He died on 17 Sept. 1723 and was buried at Ashington, the last of his family.4